The UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) will run an innovative course this October that tackles a problem common in the world of business: the gap between strategy and implementation.
The course, called Strategic Leadership Coaching, was launched earlier this year and has garnered very positive feedback from the senior business leaders who attended. The programme has also since been harnessed by Toyota Tsusho Africa as an in-house programme for executives.
The arrangement with Toyota Tsusho Africa will see executives from the business converge on the UCT GSB from around Africa for a special edition of the five-day course.
Speaking ahead of the next Strategic Leadership Coaching open programme running from 23 – 27 October Janine Everson, Academic Director at the Centre for Coaching at the GSB and the facilitator for the course, said the course is unique because of its unique blending of two disciplines – coaching and strategy – in order to target a common problem in the world of business: the gap between strategy and implementation.
Everson said many executives agree that while strategic planning is often given an organisation’s full attention – normally with input from expensive consultants – when it comes to the implementation of such strategies, something goes wrong, leaving the organisation unchanged or, worse, halfway through a process.
“But great leadership is about implementing change as well as developing the strategies to adapt to change,” she said. “You can't have one without the other.”
The course exposes senior executives responsible for strategic implementation to focussed one-on-one coaching that develops their own personal leadership competencies and an approach to leadership which will help them become effective catalysts and drivers of change.
“This course is about strategic leadership, underpinned by one-on-one coaching support as the core in helping leaders to build their capacity to envisage, mobilise and drive organisations towards strategic change objectives,“ said Everson.
“Delegates hone their leadership skills, becoming better able to foresee challenges, manage uncertainty in a constructive way and unlock the potential inherent in themselves and their colleagues.”
For more information on the course contact Shireen Brown on (021) 406 1370 or shireenb@gsb.uct.ac.za.
